Seal’s debut single Crazy (1990) is a stone-cold classic. Seal’s soulful voice with its distinctive raspy undertone soars amid Trevor Horn’s swirling, floating, bass-beat-driven production. London-born Seal signed to Trevor Horn’s ZTT hit-factory label on the back of his powerful guest vocals on Adamski’s UK #1 single, Killer (March 1990). Music Man readers might know that Trevor Horn had form as a hitmaker going back to when he was a member of The Buggles (Video Killed The Radio Star, 1979).
By the time he signed Seal, Horn had produced Malcolm McLaren, Grace Jones, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Art of Noise, and more. In our video, Seal introduces a fantastic acoustic version of Crazy with an anecdote about his path to becoming a songwriter. It turns out that a mixtape from Big Audio Dynamite drummer Greg Roberts set Seal off on a year-long journey of deep music discovery and artistic reflection. Let’s watch Seal speaking about being driven to learn to play guitar and writing Crazy.
The guitarist accompanying Seal is Mason Marangella, best known for playing on Seal’s Grammy-winner, Kiss From a Rose (1994). John Parker comments, “This song is over 30 years old – Seal’s voice is still silky smooth. Lovely.” Steev says, “That first Seal album still stands the test of time 34 years later. Masterpiece.” Gruv Nited observes, “No matter the arrangement, full-blown production or scaled-down acoustic, a good song does its job!” Kyle Kalevra states, “Seal still has it. That voice!”
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Kiss from a Rose, the Seal hit featuring Mason Maragella, was featured on the soundtracks of The Never Ending Story III (1994) and Batman Forever (1995). The song won Song of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 1996 Grammys. The video for Kiss from a Rose has been remastered recently in lush, crisp high definition to mark the reissue of Seal’s second record, Seal (the 1994 album on which Kiss from a Rose appeared). The video looks and sounds fresher than ever. Enjoy!
Circling back to Crazy, Seal says that when he wrote Crazy in 1990 he was inspired by news reports about both the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Tiananmen Square massacre. He said he felt the world was changing and everything was going a little crazy. “But we’re never gonna survive,” he sings in the chorus, “unless we get a little crazy, no we’re never gonna survive unless we are a little crazy.” In 2024, don’t we know it?!
To think that Seal owes his breakthrough song to the well-timed gifting of a mixtape… Good on you, Greg Roberts, drummer of Big Audio Dynamite!
If you would like to hear more from this talented artist, you can subscribe to their YouTube Channel for more incredible music. Discover more about Seal’s journey on his Facebook and follow his latest updates on Instagram. Visit his official website to explore his extensive music catalog.